''The Metallic Muse'' is a collection of
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
stories by
Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Lloyd Biggle Jr. (April 17, 1923 – September 12, 2002), was an American musician, author, and internationally known oral historian.
Biography
Biggle was born in 1923 in Waterloo, Iowa. He served in World War II as a communications sergeant i ...
, published in hardcover by
Doubleday Books
Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed th ...
in 1972. It was reprinted in paperback by
DAW Books in 1973.
Contents
* "The Tunesmith" (
''If'' 1957)
* "Leading Man" (
''Galaxy'' 1957)
* "Spare the Rod" (''Galaxy'' 1958)
* "Orphan of the Void" (''
Fantastic
The fantastic (french: le fantastique) is a subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of seemingly supernatural forces.
Bulgarian-French structuralist literary critic Tzvetan Todorov originated the concept, characte ...
'' 1960)
* "Well of the Deep Wish" (''If'' 1961)
* "In His Own Image" (''
F&SF
''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy fiction magazine, fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence E. Spivak, Lawrence Spiva ...
'' 1968)
* "The Botticelli Horror" (''Fantastic'' 1960)
"Orphan of the Void" was originally published as "The Man Who Wasn't Home."
Reception
Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon (; born Edward Hamilton Waldo, February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 sh ...
noted that Biggle's stories "are usually constructed around an idea or solution withheld until the punchline. . . . a valid technique, except where the reader gets to the punchline first."
["Galaxy Bookshelf", ''Galaxy'', January 1973, p.171]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Metallic Muse
1972 short story collections
Science fiction short story collections
Doubleday (publisher) books